


SHARDS

by Honmyo_Seagull



Category: Dark Avengers (Comic), Dark Wolverine (Comics), Sinister Spider-man, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Attraction starts to show, Bullseye is roped into providing, Character Study, Daken needs help, Dark Reign (Marvel), Hurt No Comfort, Hurt and more hurt (this is Bullseye), Hurt but some help, M/M, Quite a lot of slicing too, Slice of Life, The everyday life of anti-heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honmyo_Seagull/pseuds/Honmyo_Seagull
Summary: Daken tries to piss Bullseye off. (Or seduce him. Same difference.) Bullseye tries to kill Daken. That’s how they roll. Only, being part of the same team, they might have reached the point where they sometimes forget to hate each other. (Or, the one where Daken asks for help. Which is never simple for him. And probably won’t be for Bullseye either.)
Relationships: Daken Akihiro & Bullseye, Daken Akihiro/Lester | Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	SHARDS

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene after Sinister Spider-man #4, the infamous one where Bullseye throws a poodle in Venom’s eye, just to impress Daken. Yep, really.

**SHARDS**

Bullseye wakes up in a cell.

“Your lawyer is here,” the cop (whom he can only see upside down, throwing his head backward, as he is laying flat on his back on a cot) says.

The last thing he remembers is being knocked out cold by Venom. Forgive him if he’s pissed and a little slow on the uptake.

“My _what_?”

OoOoOoOoO

Maybe it’s his concussion. Maybe it’s not. It takes him the whole of ten seconds to realize. As he sits in front of his lawyer and stares, as the man shuffles papers without a care in the world and hums under his breath.

“ _Daken?_ ”

The humming stops. “Louder, Lester,” the mutant answers. The smoked glasses hide nothing of the roll of his cold clear eyes.

Bullseye looks through the window on the door of the little interrogation room, the normal buzzing activity of a busy precinct farther. There’s no tinted mirror, no camera inside, nobody’s watching from outside. “And nobody recognized you? You just waltzed in there?” It’s strange.

“People see what they want to see, Lester. Of course they didn’t recognize me.”

It’s fascinating in a whole new way. Bullseye catches himself staring. (Strike one.)

The hair. Mohawk mercilessly tamed, flattened to his skull, into a strict ponytail.

The clothes. Dark chocolate suit, creamy shirt. Expensive looking, but a little bit on the side of shabby. Exaggeratedly patterned tie. Like someone having the whole status package but not exactly able to rock it.

The stance. The mutant looks older, heavier. Like by some magic, just from the way he holds himself, the way he moves. Brusque gestures, halting emphasis, so different from his usual fluid grace.

Voice booming a little more than usual, a tad lower, a tad throatier, as he tells Bullseye to “Sign here, here, here, and here.” And under what name.

Even the tone of his skin looks like it’s been made a shade darker. Of course, the edgy black nail polish is gone as well. His hands look naked without it.

It’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s a living artifice, a fucking performance. The punk doesn’t even break character while they are alone.

The most maddening thing is the way the underlying seduction is still there, laying in wait. Something in the curve of the smile. The peek of blue eyes above the designer glasses. In this closed room, Bullseye feels like in the crosshair of it. Exposed and with nowhere to run.

“Why the long face? You’ll be out soon enough.”

“Yhea?” Bullseye must admit he’s surprised. He kinda got caught dead to rights. Which infuriates him. Goddam Venom. He’ll make Mac pay. (That’s a given.)

“Sorry it took me so long. Had a few things to see to. Change, obviously. Convince Normie I needed at least to know where they’d taken you, if he wasn’t going to get you out himself, the asshole.” The mutant looks pissed. It doesn’t sit right with him he had to ask something from their boss, it’s plain to see.

“They’ve taken your fingerprints,” Daken resumes. “Had a little IT guy to seduce in a broom closet so I could access the file and corrupt it before it ended in all the databases.”

His pen scratches on paper while he is completing form after form. Bullseye tries to have a look even though the letters are upside down for him. Daken is filling all his personal information without having to ask anything. It’s a little unnerving.

“The event was on film. Had to lay a hand on the video. It mysteriously disappeared from evidence, obviously.” The mutant’s smile is quick and impish. Bullseye is sure Daken has kept the tape. He can see a showing in his future, and he guesses Daken is going to mercilessly make fun of him for getting caught by the authorities, the bastard.

“A little bit of intimidation on the prosecutor, then. So that his _zeal_ might abate concerning this case… Poor guy wouldn’t want his wife to know who fucked him on his own desk. Little things.” Daken shrugs. “With all that, even if they try it, which they won’t if they don’t want to look ridiculous, on the top of it all, it’s going to crumble on technicality upon technicality. I’ve messed up things every step of the way.” There’s a kind of satisfaction in Daken’s voice, the one from things done, and done right.

“You’ve been a busy little bee,” Bullseye notes. He wants to say _a busy little whore_. The way Daken snorts, it’s as if he’s heard it.

“Yes, actually.” He doesn’t sound vexed. “All I need now is your signature one… last… time. Your bail has been posted.”

Bullseye seizes the pen again and writes the name Daken put on the papers where “his lawyer” says. It’s a rarely used alias of his he won’t care burning and which he doesn’t want to wonder how Daken knows. Once done with the paperwork, while Daken rearranges his files, Bullseye keeps the pen, making it turn between his fingers.

“Bail?” he inquires, though. “It’s been granted without an audience with a judge?” Bullseye is nothing of a lawyer, but he knows enough it’s not the proper procedure. Hell, he very rarely gets arrested, which is why he might be a little pissed and not really in the mood to admit he seems to owe his teammate some thanks for his intervention. (He’ll remember Normie was ready to let him rot, though.)

“You were out cold, I needed to expedite things, the judge in question is a fucking pervert under the social varnish of the robe,” Daken says, face stony. There’s something like a tenseness at the corner of his eyes, in the downturn of his mouth, which speaks of intense disgust. “He likes to overpower and hurt people. Not in the fun way. I wiggled an _in absentia_ hearing out of him.”

“What did you give him?” Bullseye neutrally asks even though he’s not sure he wants to know.

“I _hate_ to play helpless victim,” Daken simply comments, but his hands still a second on table. The pen shatters between Bullseye’s own suddenly bone white fingers. He looks at the metallic broken bits in his hand, uncomprehending of his own reaction.

“Does this judge has a name?” he lightly asks at last. “I’ll even let you look while I do him.”

“Ha, Lester, you know how much I love to watch you work. I’ll give you all that you want.” Daken winks, but it’s still an approximation of his usual sauciness.

Bullseye leans back on his seat, already considering how he’ll make it worth Daken’s time. He likes having an audience, after all. And Daken can be a tough crowd, when he wants to be in a bitchy mood. And himself hates holier-than-thou monsters in sheep’s clothing. He and Daken are a different breed. They are honest monsters, they don’t pretend. (Well, he doesn’t. Daken… meh. Claws in a bag of lies. Still.)

Daken departs the room for maybe five minutes, to have his paperwork filed, and then they both take their leave of the precinct under the gaze of the dumbfounded cops. Bullseye doesn’t even think to protest as Daken puts his hand at the small of his back to navigate him down the hallways to the exit.

Once in the street, the mutant sheds his lawyer’s skin as he walks, a subtle rearrangement of limbs. Glasses and horrible tie are carelessly thrown in a garbage can in passing. Leaving only the open jacket and creamy shirt. Three or four buttons pop open, revealing neck and a hint of chest. The more they go the more Daken falls back into his usual feline grace. He looks lighter, somehow, freer in his movements. Bullseye is weirdly remembered of the movie with this _Keyser Söze_ character…

“I’ll pay you back,” he grunts. “That bail money, you’ll never see again, since I’ve no intention to show up for court if they go for it.”

“You don’t owe me squat. As far as money is concerned, anyway.” And the punk adds with a cheeky wink: “It was Normie’s money. I might have siphoned one of his offshore accounts.”

“How…?” But this is Daken so he amends: “So what, you slept with his accountant?”

“His tax specialist, actually. A few weeks back.”

“Of course you did.”

“Charming middle-aged English – curiously enough – gentleman, and surprisingly limber.”

“I don’t want to _know_!” Bullseye exclaims, Horrified. Horrified, because _maybe_ he does want to know. Does the punk have to bed everything that moves? (Except him? In spite of the way he keeps riling him up?) Argh! No, all things considered, he really doesn’t want to think about it.

He just wants to go back to the tower and get back to work. Bullseye doesn’t particularly like the Iron boss man, but the gig is actually not so bad, and he’d like to give it a try a little bit longer, which he can’t if Daken sabotages Osborn at every turn. On the other hand, as far as team loyalty goes, when they’re not trying to kill each other, Daken watches his back more often than the Iron Patriot does, on and off mission, as demonstrated today. Bullseye doesn’t know how to feel about that, even though he has no illusions. Whatever Daken does is primarily in his own interest. And with Daken, he realizes, it actually always comes back to fucking with Osborn somehow, doesn’t it?

“And here I thought all this time you were messing with me. You just use me to mess with Normie, don’t you?” It sounds bitter. If being a target is uncomfortable, being a collateral target is even worse.

“If it makes you feel better, _messing with you_ is a lot more fun. It might have started as a mean, but it is definitely an end, nowadays. I like spending time with you.” It’s the easiness with which Daken says the last sentence that floors Bullseye a little. Because he begins to know his Dakenese well, he also knows that the mutant sometimes gives you blunt truths when he knows you’ll tend to dismiss them as lies. The mutant likes his misdirections. But Daken continues:

“Ho, before I forget. Nice throw, by the way. Left socket, just like you said…”

“Ha!” That instantly perks the hitman up quite a bit. The dog in the spider’s eye. “A little more impressive than a square peg in a round hole, hu?”

“Yes, indeed. Although…” The punk doesn’t finish his sentence, the bastard. And the teasing quality of his voice is designed to irk him, Bullseye is aware. He can’t help but bite:

“Although what, asshole.”

“Well, the dog lived. Venom is alive too, obviously. So nobody died. A bit underwhelming for a killer of your caliber.”

“ _What_?”

“Sorry, Lester. That’s how it is,” Junior says, so falsely apologetic that he is not even trying to hide he’s not.

“It still counts as a bullseye.”

“If you say so,” Daken agrees, as you’d placate a child. Ho, does he know how to push all of his buttons, Bullseye thinks with rancor.

“Don’t worry, you’ll do better next time,” the mutant adds. And, that’s when Bullseye snaps. He goes at the mutant with the twisted paperclip he palmed form “his lawyer’s” paperwork earlier.

Daken ducks and dodges easily the pointy end aimed at his eye. There’s skill in that, and, boy, does Bullseye like a good challenge. Bullseye’s ire turns somewhat into elation as he lunges again. The punk is laughing. The hitman catches himself staring. (Strike two.) The carefree note of the sound stops Bullseye cold. It’s… real. Daken sounds _happy_. The notion is… plain strange. Daken gloats a lot, often looks satisfied like the cat that got the cream, his smiles _always_ lean on the side of a smirk… _That’s_ the Daken Bullseye knows and loves Hating.

“What?" Daken asks, thrown by the hitman’s sudden pause. His eyes narrow automatically, already analyzing a potential threat. Gone is the childlike joy, which seemed to inhabit him for one second. As if it never existed in the first place.

“Nothing,” Bullseye says, feeling bummed and not knowing exactly why. “Let’s go home.”

“Home,” Daken snorts, but doesn’t actually correct him.

OoOoOoOoO

The punk has even found them a car. A very nice car, Bullseye has to admit. It’s comfortable. His sinks in the passenger seat with relish. His abused muscles from the fight with Venom feel grateful. His mood mellows significantly. The leather interior, the warm finishing touch of real wood on the dashboard… _Nice_.

“Does this belong to Normie too?” he asks.

“He really needs a better car alarm,” Daken simply says. He looks at home in the driver’s seat. He has ditched his jacket, which he has thrown on the backseat with complete disregard. Bullseye figures the piece of garment is not one the punk intends to keep. Then wonders why he would even care to ponder the question.

They’re halfway to the tower when he notices something weird. In the way Daken holds himself while driving. Too straight. As if he was reluctant to let himself touch the backrest. The mutant forgets, sometimes. His body loosens up and lets go for a minute, only to almost right back out jerk slightly forward as if the contact with the leather was hurting him.

There are tiny _tiny_ red flakes on the creaminess of the shirt. Like odd pinpricks.

Under the guise of drawing his driver’s attention on a possible shortcut, Bullseye reaches for Daken’s shoulder blade. The mutant immediately tenses up even more. But his face betrays nothing.

Bullseye innocently (ha!) leaves his hand there. He presses the flesh harder. Warm red wetness spreads, just by this contact, on the fabric, on his palm, he is fascinated. He forgets his surroundings a little and his fingers dig deeper still.

The mutant lunges at him without even leaving the road from his eyes. He keeps driving with his left hand, while the right one keeps a dead grip on Bullseye’s fingers, twisting cruelly the offensive hand away from his own shoulder. There’s mastery in the move. The pressure he actually applies is ridiculous but the result incredibly painful.

“I might not be able to break your adamantium-laced bones, Lester, but I certainly _will_ ruin the joints in your hand. Try achieving a bullseye after that,” Daken viciously snarls.

The threat is effective and so Bullseye has to relent. As Daken releases him after a last warning squeeze, the hitman has a small gesture, palms turned upwards, signifying he won’t try anything else funny. But it would take much more to impress Bullseye. “So it really hurts,” he coolly notes.

“Venom has thrown me _into a building._ What do you think?”

Bullseye remembers that. It’s actually the last thing he has seen before being knocked out cold. _It might be the reason_ he got knocked out cold, now that he thinks about it, too caught in the sheer horror of seeing a body fly that far, hurled that violently against the window work of a skyscraper. No normal human being should have survived. It explains his split second of inattention. Everything is Daken’s fault. Figures.

“There’s still glass in, all over my back,” he hears the mutant continue. “The skin healed over it.”

“Hooo, someone is cranky.” Bullseye almost cackles with glee. There’s always something utterly cheering at seeing the unflappable Daken ruffled.

“It’s annoying,” the mutant admits after a moment, as they stop to a red light. “I need the shards removed,” he adds, throwing him a significant look.

It takes Bullseye a handful of seconds to get it. “And you think I’d do it for you? Why on earth would I do that, nancy-boy?”

Daken has the nerve to laugh, managing to make it sound incredibly mean and fond at the same time, and then counts on his fingers, raising them from the wheel one after the other: “You don’t want to owe me, you like to stab me, you like to hurt me and, even though you don’t want to admit it, you want to touch me, you can’t wait to lay your hands on me, but in control for once. _And that_ , you can’t resist.” The freed hand leaves the steering wheel and briefly lands on his thigh. The caress after is just shy of filthy.

Bullseye hates that Daken is right. His jaws clench. He doesn’t remove the offending hand; Daken would guess how much it gets to him otherwise. The light goes green and Daken’s both palms are suddenly back on the wheel. When Bullseye can think clearly again, the penny drops for him:

“You _pathetic_ little schemer. You’ve helped me get out of jail so I can’t say no, have you? Because you _couldn’t_ just _ask_ f or help!”

Daken grips the wheel tighter while his face stays impassive. The punk’s hands – claws, (usually) painted nails and all –, Bullseye has always found them more trustworthy than the guy’s face.

_‘I hate to play helpless victim’,_ the hitman hears like an echo in his head.

_You just hate plain helplessness, asshole. Not that you would admit it, control freak. What (who) managed to make you so scared of your own weaknesses?_

But he can’t ask, can he? Daken would kill him rather than admit he saw right through him, he has _no_ doubt.

Bullseye turns his face away, putting his forehead against the cold car window, looking the town flying fast by outside. It feels good against the drum of the probable concussion Venom has given him.

“I’ll do it,” he grudgingly says.

“Good,” Daken replies right away. Which is as good a thank you Bullseye will ever get but he doesn’t point it out. After all, Daken got no thanks either for getting him out of jail. It balances, somehow. Which was the mutant’s whole point, wasn’t it? 

OoOoOoOoO

They reach the tower, ditch the car astride two parking spaces normally reserved for their boss. Daken can be petty like that. Bullseye too. He grabs the keys of the vehicle from the mutant and neatly scratches the paintjob all along the wing, which makes Daken hum appreciatively.

And then they proceed to ignore everybody they cross path with while walking the long hallways to their rooms. Even Victoria Hand who wants to let them know Normie wants them in his office. They exchange a quick glance and keep going anyway. Bullseye guesses the mutant must be rather anxious to get rid of the glass grating under his skin. As for him, he doesn’t feel like seeing someone who sent him to a mission only to totally forget about him when things got south as quick as you can say Venom. Victoria huffs and says nothing, seemingly taken aback at the sight of them looking suddenly so in synch.

As they reach their two neighboring doors, they stop. “My room or yours?” Bullseye asks, matter of fact. He still winces inwardly at the possible double-entendre.

“Yours, if you don’t mind,” the mutant answers after a couple seconds of consideration.

“So you’d let anybody fuck you, but you wouldn’t show them your rooms. You’re weird.”

“Ho, I take some of them to _my_ bed. But don’t be jealous. Only the insignificant ones. Shall we?”

Bullseye has no particular attachment to his sleeping quarters. There’s nothing really personal in there outside of the tools of his trade (or rather, both of his trades: the avenger and the hitman, Hawkeye and Bullseye). For that very reason, the feeling of weirdness of having Daken in his room is long to abate. The punk is so out of place, in here. He can’t help wondering what Daken can see of him in this space, the perceptive little minx, out of the fact that his trade is, indeed, his life…

Daken watches everywhere around him, unperturbed, but his hands betray his real curiosity. His fingers stray a second on the fabric of a Hawkeye uniform thrown on a chair. Reach inside an open closet, whose door Bullseye almost slams shut on them in a hurry. And yes, the mutant shows an interest for the weapons. Even picks a few of them in hand, manipulating them with ease and due appreciation. (They might not look like much a first sight, but Bullseye only works with the best weapons when he is not improvising with whatever is at hand.) But it looks like a kind of politeness. Because he knows where Bullseye’s pride lays. And Bullseye knows he knows.

The hitman can’t help his snort when he notices that what actually piques Daken’s curiosity is the presence of a few books here and there. These, the mutant engages with more heartily, weighing them in his palms, flipping through them, a slight smile on his face.

“My, Lester, aren’t you a man full of surprises…”

“What, I’m not a heathen,” he snaps. “So, you’re here for a book club, or what.”

Daken puts back down the slim volume he was perusing with a sigh.

“Or what, unfortunately. But I’ll remember your offer,” he answers with a cheeky grin.

Bullseye groans. He kinda walked right into this one. “It _wasn’t_ an offer,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Let me borrow your bathroom first, before we get to the main course,” the mutant adds. Obviously, in true Daken fashion, he doesn’t wait for an answer as he lets himself in the tiny room.

“By all means, make yourself at home,” the killer throws after him. Bullseye is pretty sure that much sarcasm couldn’t possibly fly over his pretty head, but:

“Thank you, Lester,” Daken simply replies from inside. It almost sounded sincere. Then there’s the noise of running water.

The rolled ball of the creamy and stained-to-the-shoulder shirt flies from inside the bathroom into the living room. It falls there like a shot bird.

“Hey, don’t mess my place!” Bullseye shouts, automatically bending to pick it up, but finding himself at a loss, once the garment in hand. It is soft. He hadn’t noticed before; too busy trying to make Daken bleed when he had touched it in the car.

“You can trash it,” Daken says as he emerges from the room. “It’s ruined.” But seeing Bullseye with the shirt in his hands, he amends: “But if you want to keep it as a souvenir, who I am to oppose?”

Bullseye lets go with a grimace of profound disgust. There’s amusement in Daken’s eyes, but he doesn’t properly notice, his mind is elsewhere. He was right; Daken’s skin color had been altered too for his lawyer stunt. The mutant’s skin is wet and looks a few shades clearer. Even if he is still in the brown dress pants, with his naked chest and his freed mohawk, he resembles at last the savage killer who went on a spider hunt with him. It’s strange how much it’s a relief to have him back.

The mutant has grabbed a few towels from the bathroom, but says, showing his bounty: “Get more if you have some, it gets messy quite quick with the blood.”

“Ho, I get it, now, why we’re at my place. You didn’t want blood on your own stuffs.”

“You see evil everywhere. Paranoid much? Forgot your meds?” Daken taunts. “No, I know because I have started on the rest of my body, before I got you out. I’ve apologized for my tardiness, haven’t I? It’s only my back I can’t reach properly,” he admits more soberly.

From this point on, Daken looks more focused. His attention is on the practical. He puts the towels he borrowed in the bathroom on the little desk in the living room, accepts a few more Bullseye has grabbed from the wardrobe. Brisk and efficient, he turns the chair backwards and sits astride it, crossing one arm on the backrest, cushioning his head on it. His other hand grabs the long hair at his neck, and stays there, gripping the black mane, baring his upper back.

“Any time you want, darling. I’m all yours.”

He will never get the image out of his head, Bullseye realizes with something half horror and half awe. This… is the living picture of consenting victim, and resonates with _so many_ of his fantasies… It somehow feels as alluring (it’s Daken, whom he dreams to hurt most of the times and kill the rest) as disturbing (it’s Daken, who would _never_ willingly put himself at someone’s mercy without a good _exigent_ reason).

There is something vaguely intimidating in this whole expanse of skin all his to play with. Curiously, he notices only then that the tattoo had been camouflaged as well earlier. How could he have missed it, when he remembers looking at Daken’s hands all the time he was filling paperwork? It hadn’t registered that the familiar blackness wasn’t there peeking from under the shirt’s sleeve and marking the back of his hand.

Bullseye gets closer and closer. Till he stands just behind the mutant. He grabs a chair for himself, sits. All he has to do is to reach out. There is something exhilarating at seeing this defenseless nape. Bullseye could do _anything_. Break this neck. Grip and squeeze it. Put his hand on it and feel the strangely delicate vertebrae softly emerging just under the skin. Put a blade between two of them bones and make Daken as motionless as a puppet. Bite it. (Kiss it.)

He reaches for the little sheath in his boot, to get one of his most trusted blade, a razor-sharp dainty little thing, and then gets to work. The haze of anticipation disappears precisely as he puts his fingers on the warm skin. Afterwards, all becomes clear focus, glee and a thousand cuts.

OoOoOoOoO

“Ho, fuck’s sake, Lester, Try—” But Daken stops in the middle of his sentence.

“Try what?” Bullseye asks, annoyed. If the punk is not happy with the way he’s working on his flesh… After all, he’s only just getting started.

“I was about to say, _Try not to enjoy it too much_ , then I remembered who I was talking to.”

Daken sounds irritated and it’s sooo gratifying. “Yhea, you’ve got only yourself to blame. You’ve said it yourself, I like hurting you. And you asked for it.” That’s the beauty of the thing, as far as Bullseye is concerned.

Daken growls: “I. Know.”

OoOoOoOoO

It’s fun at first. Really. The tremors any time he attacks the skin, the intense tenseness suddenly seizing cut muscles, the soft hisses anytime a piece of glass is wrenched from the flesh. But Daken doesn’t fight the pain, hardly rebels against it. He lets Bullseye to his enjoyment. After a while, it’s simply as if he were not really there. Cut, remove, wipe blood. And this goes on and on. And on.

Some shards are easy to get to. Bullseye simply goes at them with his fingers once the skin is open. He takes out a little pair of pliers he usually uses on people’s nails and other appendages for some of the pieces, though.

The amount of glass and other small debris he lets drop on a tray he took from his tiny bar become staggering. The size and the sharpness of some of these shards… (He knows, he cuts his fingers on some of them.) The way they must have shifted inside with each muscle movement… 

Bullseye has tortured people. He has quite a clear idea of how excruciating it must have been. What’s _wrong_ with Daken that he can actually compartmentalize that kind of pain, ignore it for such a length of time and just _go on_. His stunt at the precinct is not only a performance. It’s a fucking _exploit_.

“This one is going to hurt really bad when I pull it out,” he warns at one point. The length of the ordeal has kind of sobered him up, and it feels only polite.

“Why.” The tone is so dry the words through the clenched jaws seem to lose their interrogative inflexion.

Bullseye tries to remain factual. “It’s near a kidney.”

“Ho,” the mutant quietly acknowledges. “Wonderful.”

Daken’s fingers from the hand in his hair, at the base of his skull, clench harder. When Bullseye is ready to go for the piece of glass, he grabs this hand and grips it with bruising force with his free one, pushing on Daken’s neck, while he pulls with the other. The mutant can’t help but let go of a harsh cry. His first. It’s not as pleasurable as Bullseye would have thought. Daken is breathing hard for a whole minute afterwards. All that time, their fingers stay viciously entwined.

Daken disengages first, quickly stands up, stretches a moment. The cut at the bottom of his back is already knitting itself back, like all the others. He reaches for one the towels to press on it anyway, not to make a mess while moving. With careful gestures, he tests his own state. Unerringly, his hand finds the patches of skin Bullseye hasn’t treated yet, evaluating what’s left to be done.

“Fancy a break?”

“Tired already, Lester?”

“I’m able to torture people for days and you think I can’t keep on all night?”

“My, my, Lester. I didn’t mean to cast doubt on your stamina… Perhaps a drink, though… before we resume.” Daken is already perusing the content of his bar. The latest cut has closed, the mutant carelessly lets the bloody towel fall on the counter and reaches for a bottle, looks at it, puts it back.

“Need to steel your nerves a little?”

Daken stares back and answers without missing a beat, as dry as the desert: “Yes, Lester, you’ve got me here. You set my heart all aflutter, that’s why I need a pick-me-up.” Then he goes back to his foraging. “Ha, nice. Japanese whiskey. I see I’m not the only one stealing from Normie.”

“That’s not the same,” Bullseye answers, a tad on the side of defensive. “It’s just a bottle.”

Daken sighs. “A _very fine_ bottle. Tell me you don’t think it tastes like cheap booze. We really should do something about your palate. I need to take you to dinner, some time.”

“Ho, yhea? To that fancy place of yours? _Chez Panisse_?” He overacts the accent because he knows it’ll annoy Daken.

“Come on, Lester,” the mutant needles him. “You like sophistication, from time to time. I’ve seen some of your kills, the skill you put in them. I’ve seen how you choose some of them… Why not sometimes apply the same taste to what you put into your mouth?” He sounds genuinely puzzled.

“Says the one who’d put _anybody_ in his mouth,” Bullseye snaps.

Daken sniggers while pouring himself a glass. He holds the bottle towards Bullseye, but the hitman refuses the implicit offer for a drink of his with a minute shake of the head. Daken shrugs.

“That’s why I said _sometimes_ , Lester. Plus, good food helps forgetting the taste of the foul ones.”

_Ha._ That startles Bullseye. And he had simply figured, all this time, Daken was just a slut. How blind was he not to realize sooner Junior simply uses his body the same mercenary way he would use any other tool, any other weapon at his disposal. A weapon he’s been using on _him_ on a daily basis, by the way.

“Do you even _like_ the sex?” Bullseye wonders, even surprised by the sound of his own voice. He hadn’t thought he was talking aloud.

One second Daken seems thrown by the leap in the conversation but rallies quickly.

“Ho, darling, I would make it worth your time and show you how it’s supposed to be done. Never fear. _You_ would _like_ it,” he silkily whispers, words like a caress. Bullseye, impossibly, can feel them _on his skin_. Warmth pools in his loins, his hand want to reach for flesh, right now, right there, and… His fists close brutally; it reopens some of the small cuts he has just suffered. It stings, making him come back to his senses.

“Nice evasion, asshole,” he spits. “Answer the damn question.”

It’s one of his shit-eating grins, Daken gives him. The very bright one, that the unwary ones take for innocence and the wary like him dread.

“Then, the response would be: _who cares?_ ”

Checkmate. Daken has got him into a corner, because they both know he’ll never answer he does. It’s not in his nature. Bullseye might like the puzzle the freak represents but he sure as hell doesn’t like _Daken_. (Or – but Bullseye refuses to listen what his guts tell him, doesn’t want to deal with it – maybe the mutant just answered the question quite literally and truthfully.)

The mutant raises his glass as a salute and throws his head back, emptying it. He then turns his back on Bullseye (and Bullseye _knows_ he does that just to show him how much he doesn’t fear anything from him) to pick up the bottle again and treat himself with another glassful of amber liquid. He puts his elbows on the bar, sipping his second serving slowly. Savoring, this time.

It’s actually easier, for once, to be ignored, Bullseye thinks. He can look without Daken calling him on it.

There are flakes of dried hemoglobin on his skin, some blood seeped in the fabric of the brown dress pants, but the skin is flawless, as if Bullseye hadn’t spent the last thirty minutes cutting into it. Where do the scars go? Without a trace left of the wounds, does it mean the mutant never learns? With no reminder on his skin, is he doomed to always repeat the same mistakes? Let himself get hurt to these absurd extents? Even the fucking _tattoo_ comes back intact.

Bullseye realizes he has gotten closer only when his hand actually touches the dark design. Daken doesn’t even flinch at the sudden contact. He _still_ is not looking at him.

“Won’t be long, we’re two-third done, I guess,” Bullseye notes quietly enough to hide his own confusion. His hand glides on the expanse of skin he has already worked on. Daken’s back arches sensibly. He hums almost inaudibly. A sound buried deep in his throat but which sends vibrations in his ribs, to Bullseye’s palms.

It’s what makes Bullseye snap. His hand moves so fast Daken doesn’t see it coming. He grips a wrist, twists it cruelly back in the same movement while the weight of his body crushes the mutant under him. He has Daken pressed against the sharp edge of the bar. They hear the sound of the glass rolling on the marble surface and shattering on the floor, a sound of liquid dripping.

“You shouldn’t forget yourself, punk. You shouldn’t forget _who I am_. What I can do to you. Do not turn you back on _me_.”

He is on the edge of popping the shoulder joint; he knows how painful it must be. Bullseye straightens up, keeping his prey close, Daken’s back to his chest. He expects a fight or flight reflex which would destroy the articulation further… And indeed the mutant’s body tenses a second, but the irate ripple through his captive is self-aborted before Daken’s body is even strained. And suddenly Daken just goes… lax.

His articulation is still in inhuman extension but the rest of his body just seems to let go, his back falls further against Bullseye’s torso, his nape lands on the hitman’s shoulder, his hair brushing softly against his aggressor’s neck. His throat is bared. His eyes are half-closed, looking at the ceiling. Daken’s _smell_ is all over him.

“So, what do you _really_ want, Lester?” he asks, disturbingly softly.

That moment, Bullseye knows. He _knows_. Daken would let him do _anything_ to him. And, Lester, he suddenly wants… wants…

He lets go as if burned. Face flushed, heartbeat rabbity-quick.

“What have you done to me, asshole!?”

“I’ve made you let me go, Lester…” The singsong quality of Daken’s voice is designed to grate on his nerves and to mock. His shoulder’s articulation cracks a little as the mutant rolls it slowly.

He then tranquilly gets back to his chair – _his back to Bullseye_ , offered to the touch of a knife – in exactly the same position as before.

“Well, do go on, then… The sooner you’re done the sooner I’m outta your hair. No pun intended, of course.”

And Bullseye knows he would lose face if he didn’t continue his task. So he picks up his blade and gets back to work. Fuming.

OoOoOoOoO

Bullseye can’t help his sigh once he’s finished and leans back in his seat. His knife clatters in the tray with the last piece of glass he has found.

“Are you done?” Daken asks, arms stretching above his head, his back undulating in the movement, not being impaired by pain at last.

Bullseye only grunts his affirmative.

“Can I shower, now? You’re welcome to join, obviously,” the mutant winks, already leaving his chair to get to the bathroom without waiting for an answer.

“Can’t you do that at your place?” Bullseye grouses.

“Warm water. Now!” the mutant answers with a hint of a growl, disappearing in the other room. The hitman lets it go only because it’s nice to see Daken might be a little bit at the end of his rope.

He rises in turn, and it coincidently puts him in front of a mirror. In spite of the dark shade of the Bullseye’s costume, he can still see even darker stains on his chest. Some of them are simply the places where he unconsciously wiped his fingers while working on the punk. Others…

“You got blood on me, asshole, gluing yourself to me like that!” he yells in the relative direction of the mutant.

“Which is exactly why I said, you’re welcome to join me,” Daken simply points from the other side of the door. The shower is already running inside. “You know you want to. Stop looking for pretexts.”

That’s it. He’s going to kill him, Bullseye decides.

When he enters the bathroom, vapor and scent of soap are overpowering. It must kill his sense of smell, for Daken doesn’t notice his presence in the doorway right away. And for once there’s something utterly unselfconscious about him. 

The damn punk is standing in the shower booth, having not bothered preserving his modesty with the curtain. Leaning on his arms, palms flat against the wall, his head his bent, his back vulnerable. His hair is splattered to his scalp and to one of his shoulders by the spray of water. One strand tries to obscure his eye; he pushes it back behind his ear. The smallest of gesture. It still stops Bullseye dead in his tracks. He is caught staring. (Strike three, one remnant of his old baseball days whispers in his head. Batter out.)

The blood has already almost disappeared. A few of the first stains, dryer and harder to scrub, try to cling to his skin. Daken moves his shoulders slowly, trying to loosen up a little more, Bullseye guesses. He has felt how reflexively the muscles, nerves and tendons couldn’t help but seize and tense any time he had to cut into them.

The tattoo seems to take a life of its own. The harsh neon light, the brilliance of it on the running water seem to make the black ink shiver. It’s extensive. In all his naked glory, Daken displays it completely for once. It reaches further than the hitman had anticipated. It hugs the hip, ventures well beneath the waist of the pants he usually wears, one of the daring tendrils curls on his buttock. Bullseye wonders for a second. Who would Daken trust enough to let them work at his body long enough to realize the masterpiece? (When he thinks the answer would probably be _nobody_ , there’s like an ominous weight settling in the pit of his stomach.)

“Really?” Daken’s annoyed voice echoes weirdly against the tiles. “There’s still more?”

Bullseye starts but realizes soon enough the mutant is not addressing him. Daken is slowly working his neck. His hand is reaching for the base of his skull, in his hair, a place Bullseye didn’t get to explore during his ministrations, the place where the mutant had put his hand all the while to hold his mane out of the way. Daken teases his own skin with his fingertips, not exactly wincing, but with this perceptible cautiousness which shows that here, and even running down his throat, a few debris are still there, buried. One second he closes his eyes, slowly breathes out through his nose, working his frustration to a more focused mindset. It’s plain on his face. He doesn’t know he is watched.

Still in the stall, he leans towards the nearby sink. His fingers explore the few toiletries. He reaches for the straight razor Bullseye uses to shave his head, his body. The mutant shakes it open with a brisk flick of his wrist. It’s a deadly sharp little blade; the hitman maintains it well in shape. Daken considers the knife, contemplating how he can make it work for him.

His concentrated frown makes him look even younger, unlikely. It’s sometimes hard to remember, Bullseye admits, that Daken is something like almost twice older than him. (He’s read the files, thank you very much.) There could also be something heartbreaking in the fact that putting a knife to his skin seems so normal to Daken, a minor, habitual inconvenience. But it escapes him entirely: Bullseye doesn’t do heartbroken. The same way, he knows feeling sorry (even if he knew _how_ ) for Daken would be the best way to get himself killed. And still…

“You’re doing it all wrong,” he calls from the threshold, leaning casually (he hopes) against the doorframe.

The mutant doesn’t actually start, but there is a pause in his movement, minute, but there.

“Why, Lester… Are you offering some more help?”

“If it’s not done, it’s not done.”

“So, darling, you’re just being a perfectionist?” There’s a faint smile Bullseye doesn’t know how to decipher, it looks too fond if a little condescending.

“Exactly,” he says, coming closer.

Daken relinquishes the straight razor without resistance, lets him put it to his throat. Wisely, the mutant also shuts up. The only sound is the still running water. One second, in his mind, Bullseye murders Daken right there and right then, one, two, dozens of different ways. In reality, one of his hands cups Daken’s jaw and the cut he inflicts is so thin and precise it hardly bleeds.

Bullseye doesn’t even complain when the water from the shower spray begins to wet his sleeves. He just sighs, stops for a minute, strips with matter-of-fact efficiency and hops in the shower.

The mild surprise in Daken’s eyes actually means he has won this round.

**THE END**


End file.
